She Is
by aleeeson
Summary: She is everything I need that I never knew I wanted. She is everything I want that I never knew I needed.


**A/N: **Oh, fanfiction.. it's been a while. Yup, I don't own the HSM characters.. I just have fun with them. So, relax, sit back, enjoy, read & review!

_" She is everything I need that I never knew I wanted, she is everything I want that I never knew I needed " - _The Fray

**1 **  
I have seen beauty at is best, and at its worst.

The gorgeous model on the blow-up Abercrombie and Fitch ad, in front of the mall; she's beautiful. And the not-so-attractive thirty-five year old woman I always run into at CVS; she's…well, not so much. But when I look at Gabriella Montez, _really_ look at her, I see something entirely different. I see beauty in its true form: perfect, with a few flaws here and there. But perfect nonetheless.

How did I come to think of her this way?

I mean, at first just looking at her made me sick. And whenever she walked into a room my nose wrinkled up like she was some kind of viral disease. In her case, it was no different…she wouldn't even glance my way because of her deep hatred. She pretended like I didn't exist, when she knew just as well that I did. I guess that's the way it has always been, between us. Between enemies. That's just our stand.

Like everything else, it started at school. First grade, actually.

We were both at the playground during recess with our own little groups, terrorizing the kindergarteners and being terrorized by the second graders, who were being controlled by the third graders. It always worked like that at East Albuquerque Elementary—there were class ranks; kindergarteners were bullied and sixth graders got all the perks. And you were always at war with your classmates, the ones not in your social group.

I was no exception. I was six-year-old Troy Bolton, class delinquent and Mr. Popular, the cool guy with the hat and shades, who liked basketball and shooting things. The one girls squealed about who had the MOST cooties, because I was so cool like that.

_She_ was annoying. Even back then Gabriella was the class naturalist, the tiny-framed girl who kept it short and simple. She came from a small family. She was such a know-it-all. She raised her hand so often in class that poor irritated Mrs. Cope stopped calling on her altogether. She never broke the rules, and she was a tattletale. You couldn't get away with anything around her, so nobody ever tried. She only had one or two friends on campus.

But jeez, was she annoying.

I was climbing the monkey bars with my two buds, Chad Danforth—back then his fro was already starting to develop—and a guy named James Tellall. We were all laughing, talking…when Gabriella shows up, in her indigo jean dress and pink cowboy boots. She stared at me with wide, cautious eyes. I glared back.

"Your eyes are really blue," she notes.

I almost fell off the monkey bars. I was so surprised, but tried not to show it. I regained my composure, casually hanging upside down from the bar. I could feel the blood rushing to my head but didn't care. Gabriella stepped closer so that our faces, mine upside down, were an inch apart. Behind me I heard Chad and James snickering.

She looked down. "Your shoelaces are untied."

She always notices the little things, the out-of-place ideas that drove her crazy.

"Yeah, so?" I stammered.

She blinked once, twice, her chocolate-colored eyes staring into mine. "Aren't you going to tie them?" she asked softly. She sounded like my mother.

I snorted. "What's it to you?" And then, like the gentlemen I was raised to be, I spat in her face. Literally. I hacked a huge spitball from the deep ends of my throat and shot it right smack at her nose. It lingered for a few seconds before dripping all over. Sick.

Chad and James burst into fits of laughter. I actually smiled.

Gabriella stared at me in horror before realizing what I'd just done. And then she screamed so loudly, I swear my ears went half-deaf. "EWWWWW!" she yelled, attempting at using her sleeve to wipe the gunk off. "You are absolutely, horribly disgusting Troy Bolton!" she screamed at my face. I now saw tears leaking from her big brown eyes. "I HATE YOU!"

And then she ran away, sobbing dramatically, into the girls' bathroom. When it was over, I smirked at Chad and James, who were clapping enthusiastically. Like proud kid soldiers, we exchanged high-fives and didn't talk about it for the rest of the day. And when recess ended, I walked into class expecting a lecture on respect from Mrs. Cope, but to my surprise, she didn't even look my direction. Like it didn't even happened…or maybe she didn't know.

I stared at Gabriella, who was sitting quietly with her hands folded in her lap, paying full attention to the lesson. _She didn't even tattletale on me! _I realized in shock. _She didn't get me in trouble!_

I was speechless the rest of the day. When school finally got out, I tried catching her at her desk, but Mrs. Cope wanted to speak to me after class. She didn't finish fast enough, so by the time I'd gotten to Gabriella's desk, maybe to apologize and thank her for not telling on me, she was long gone.

But her hatred for me continued throughout the years.

In fourth grade we had a field trip to an old Santa Fe mission, and Gabriella and I were stuck sitting together on the bus. She had her arms crossed and her lips tightly shut for the whole ride. And in seventh grade I purposely irritated her again by yelling, "Dork!" out loud during her campaigning speech for class president. Everyone laughed, she didn't win, and she never ran for office again.

In our freshman year of high school she got her revenge during tryouts for basketball. I was showing off to the coach—not yet my dad; he became head coach when I was a sophomore—by sprinting as fast as I could with the basketball between my legs. Gabriella walked into the gym and blindly stuck her foot out in the middle of my jubilee run. I tripped and landed hard on my face. In the end I made it to junior varsity team, but I was still pretty ticked off.

The constant battle between us never changed. The rules stayed the same: get revenge, and don't get hurt. It was sort of amusing, in a way, seeing her face crumple up at whatever I said or did. And the next day she would bite right back. The girl was fierce, if you know what I mean. She knew very well how to get her vengeance. She was very good at a payback game like this. We both were. We twisted everything around once in a while; it was _our_ game, our rules.

So now we're seniors.

The first malice thing she said to me when I sauntered into the hallway on the first day of school was, "Oh, Bolton, wow! You're here! So you're actually planning on _graduating_ this year? My, I'm shocked! I always imagined you dropping out and becoming a slots dealer at the casino." She smiled her wicked, nasty smile.

"My ass, Montez," I snapped.

She nodded solemnly. "Yes, your ass indeed, Bolton. Your ass held back another year."

"Shut the hell up," I growled, turning away so that I couldn't hear whatever spiteful thing she said next. But I'm pretty sure it was those familiar three words I lived to hear from her mouth alone, "I hate you." And I'm right. She has reason to, just like I have every reason to strongly dislike her.

So why can't I?

We are also in the same chemistry class. Ironically, we've been assigned partners. I swear, it's like fate is out to get us. The whole school knows we hate each other, yet we're still assigned as lab partners. Life really sucks sometimes.

Outside of the classroom, we tried staying out of each other's way. It was just easier when I didn't have to look at her stupid, annoying face sometimes. But she was _always_, for some reason, in the back of my mind. Still there. I deeply involved myself in basketball, friends, and girls to pass the time. To get my mind off of her.

Mid-senior year, she got her first boyfriend. I know it's her first because I have been in her class since the first grade and let me tell you, no boy has ever laid eyes on her. She may have some fairly good looks, but she's too intimidating, too good, and it's frightening. No guy wants to go _near_ that chick. But Milton Tchaikovsky is the only exception. Milton, the weird kid who plays the violin in his spare time (which he has a lot of), who apparently is related to some musical genius like Beethoven or whatever, who collects the fortunes in fortune cookies, who wears strong Christian Dior cologne on a daily basis, who has never been to a football game, and who just so happens to be the same chemistry class Gabriella and I are in.

They met—where else?—under the fuming smell of chemicals and Bunsen burners. Even though she's my partner, Gabriella prefers not talking to me and asking Milton, who works in the lab table across from us, for advice. Not that she needs any, of course. She knows everything there is to know about…well…chemistry shit. She's just trying to get Milton's undivided attention. _Milton_, of all people. The kid is seriously dense.

"Hey, um, Milton?" Gabriella asked one day while we were doing a study on pig intestines. "Can I ask you something real quick?"

Tchaikovsky smiled warmly. He too was busy educating his dumb blonde of a partner, Emily, on the wonders of pig guts. Emily however was giving me the old eye—for a dumb blonde, she was kinda hot. "What can I do for you?" Milton asked politely. You could tell he liked working with Gabriella more than Emily. At least Gabriella _had_ the whole freaking periodic table of the elements memorized, and in alphabetical order.

"I just need to check if I'm doing these right…" Gabriella blinked innocently up at Milton, batting her long eyelashes as she showed him her lab worksheet. I rolled my eyes, disgusted. Geeks like these don't know a single thing about flirting. Emily, however…

"Well, I'm glad to help," Milton said after a full hour of incessantly smiling at Gabriella, who happily beamed back, trying to get his interest. She thanked him again and again to the point where he asked her "if she was busy later and could they have dinner, by any chance?" Gabriella accepted gleefully without a second thought.

Poor girl. I mean, she's going out with a musical prodigy. That has _got_ to suck.

"Hey Montez, remember to use a condom!" I called out as soon as the bell rang and she and Milton were trotting out the door. I watched him open the door for her, ever the gentleman, and before leaving the classroom Gabriella turned to stick out her tongue at me, her eyes even and narrowed. I stuck up my middle finger in response, grinning.

I could almost hear her whisper, so threatening and icy, _"You asshole."_

A few days later I found myself pleasantly pressed up against the lockers during free period. Emily was thrown against me, kissing my neck in pleasure. She groaned. "Mm, Troy."

"Emily." I kissed her back, my fingers tickling just beneath her shirt.

Just then a door opened and _she_ walked out into the empty hallway, humming something I couldn't hear. As soon as she saw us her eyes turned to slits of disapproval. I could only smile as she walked on, pretending not to see or hear us; Emily moaning and me kissing her blonde little face off. Gabriella couldn't hide her disgust—she and Milton would never do such a thing so infantile, especially in public. She was too fucking _good_.

And all of a sudden, I wanted to know what she was thinking. Maybe she's one of the smartest people I have ever met, and her brain-size is, like, huge. But the one thing I'll never understand, the one thing I could never tune in to, is her thoughts.

I can't stand it. She's driving me crazy.

The day after, she caught me beside the gym locker rooms with a chick named Miranda. Her nose wrinkled in repulsion. She looked sort of cute, with her face all scrunched up like that. I waved the thought off. "Got a problem, Montez?" I asked her, feeling buggish. Miranda untangles from my arms to glare at her.

Instead of just walking away, Gabriella stared back fully into Miranda's face and said, "If you get pregnant or contract an STD one of these days, you know it'll be entirely your fault."

My jaw dropped. Miranda snapped back, "Are you calling me a whore?"

"I don't usually resort to name-calling," Gabriella replied coolly. "But, if you're putting it that way, then yes."

Miranda scoffed. I gaped at them both and wondered what I was doing in the middle of this. I had no idea girl drama was so…brutal. "Whatever," Miranda waves off, defeated. "That stuff only happens in movies and, like, TV."

Gabriella just laughed and, without glancing once at me, walked off down the hallway. Miranda crossed her arms and angrily left. I was stunned at Gabriella's boldness and exact predictability—because only a week later, it was rumored Miranda hooked up with one of the guys from the football team. Now she's three months pregnant.

I didn't fool around with many girls after that.

And lately, I haven't really talked to or bugged Gabriella. The truth is, I can't.

I no longer have the nerve to insult her, to spit in her face like I've always done. The truth is, I can hardly _breathe_ when I'm around her. Maybe it's her dead-on honesty, how she's shy but able to speak her mind, and the way she looks past brains or brawn…she looks inside. Maybe that's what she saw in Milton Tchaikovsky. Maybe it wasn't his intelligence or ability to play one scale after another on the violin. What she saw, maybe, was inside. And that was real.

She drives me crazy.

She's all I think about, all I dream about being with, even when I'm not. And she's so _beautiful_. She's the first girl I've met whose mind is so muddled, like shower glass and I can't see through. A lot of girls I've known and been with are so fake, I can practically hear their thoughts. Not that they have a lot, anyway. Past the blonde hair and pretty smiles, makeup and cheerleading outfits, they have nothing. Gabriella has depth.

I mean I've seen her mess up. Like in chem. class, she doesn't always get the answers right. And then she cringes and shrinks in her seat and I smirk, but secretly think it's the cutest thing in the world. And sometimes when approached by snobs like Emily or Miranda, instead of being her confident, overbearing self, Gabriella trips or falls on her face. Maybe because she thinks she isn't good enough, she'll never be good enough. Maybe, she thinks, she needs the blonde hair or the extreme makeover. To look gorgeous. To fit in.

I wish girls could see that they are beautiful without lowering their standards.

And Gabriella is incredibly beautiful, both inside and out.

Her "boyfriend" doesn't even tell her that. I wish there was a way I could let Gabriella—not that she would ever believe _me_—know that Milton doesn't even love her. I know this because he's in my Gym period and in the locker room talks constantly about how he's ditching their next "study date" (seriously, who _has_ those?!) to go to a Warcraft Convention, whatever that is. He tells his friends how desperately he wants his "Dark Magician" character to "abscond" with "Lady Starr of the Fortress" (aka; some nerd chick he met online). They're both on Level 263 and, as Milton says, universally made for each other.

Does this guy even realize how lucky he is to have a _real_ girlfriend, an incredible girl who adores everything about him, from his weird sax-playing scales to his 1980 loafers? DOES HE EVEN KNOW?!

Ugh. It just…pisses me off. He has this precious treasure in his control, and he's not even treating her right. He doesn't love her the way she _should_ be loved; with tenderness, decency, and care. With all of his heart.

I don't get it. I mean, I'd always hated her completely. I wanted nothing to do with her. Likewise, she felt—or rather, feels—the same. We've been enemies since forever, and nothing should change. Normally, that's how it's supposed to go, in a relationship like ours. That's the way it works.

But now, I feel anything at all but apathy. Or hatred.

I guess this means only one thing. _I love her. _And there's nothing, absolutely nothing in this world that I could ever want more.

**  
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